John Glenn: 1st American to Orbit Earth, Oldest Man in Space John Glenn: 1st American to Orbit Earth, Oldest Man in Space By Nola Taylor Redd, Space.com Contributor | December 8, 2015 04:45pm ET MORE Editor's note: John Glenn, a legendary NASA astronaut and American hero, died on Dec. 8, 2016 at age 95. Read our full obituary here . More coverage: America's First Spaceship: Project Mercury (Infographic) The first American to orbit the Earth, John Glenn made history again when, at the age of 77, he became the oldest person to travel in space. But before he was nationally recognized as a hero, he had put his life on the line for his country many times. Born on July 18, 1921, in Cambridge, Ohio, John Herschel Glenn Jr., was the son of John and Teresa Sproat Glenn. While playing in the high school band, he met Anna Margaret Castor, and later married her. After graduation, he attended Muskingum College, where he attained a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Glenn entered the Naval Aviation Cadet Program. He ultimately flew 59 combat missions in the Pacific during World War II. Astronaut John Glenn photographed in space by an automatic sequence motion picture camera during his historic orbital flight on "Friendship 7" on Feb. 20, 1962. Credit: NASA After the war ended, Glenn served as an instructor for advanced flight training at Corpus Christi, Texas. He went on to fly 90 missions in Korea, downing three MiGs during the his last nine days of combat. From there, Glenn attended Test Pilot School at the Naval Air Test Center in Maryland, then went on to serve as project officer on a number of aircraft. He attended classes at the University of Maryland for two and a half years while assigned to the Fighter Design Branch of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics, the precursor to the Bureau of Naval Weapons. In July 1957, Glenn set a transcontinental speed record, flying from Los Angeles to New York in 3 hours 23 minutes. His was the first cross-country flight to average supersonic speed.

Glenn was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross six times, as well as a number of other honors for his military service. He and his wife have two children. Beyond the sky In April 1959, Glenn was selected as a Project Mercury astronaut. He became part of the Mercury Seven group, the first astronauts selected by NASA. Glenn served as backup astronaut to the first two Americans in space, Alan Shepard and Virgil "Gus" Grissom. [ Project Mercury: Photos of NASA's 1st Manned Spaceflights ] At the time, the United States was in the midst of a race with the Soviet Union to reach the stars. Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man launched into space on April 12, 1961, beating Alan Shepard by less than a month. Gagarin's craft took him in a full orbit around Earth, making him the first person to circle the planet, as well. [ Infographic: 1st American in Orbit: How NASA & John Glenn Made History ] On Feb. 20, 1962, the United States showed that it had the same mettle as its competition.

Previous flights into space by Shepard and Grissom had not traveled all the way around the planet. When Glenn blasted into space aboard Mercury's Friendship 7 capsule, he orbited Earth three times over the course of almost five hours, traveling faster than 17,000 mph. [ VIDEO: This is Friendship 7: America's 50th On-Orbit Anniversary ] But his journey was not without hazards . After the first orbit, a mechanical problem with the automatic control system required Glenn take manual control of the craft. Sensors also indicated that the heat shield, which would protect the astronaut from the lethal temperatures created upon re-entry to the atmosphere, was loose. To help protect him on his return to Earth, Glenn kept the retrorocket pack, which was designed to be jettisoned, in place. Follow-up examination of the control system revealed that the indicator had been incorrect. The shield was fine, but the experience was surely harrowing. [ PHOTOS: John Glenn, First American in Orbit ] An active retirement Glenn retired from the Marine Corps in 1965 as a colonel. He worked as a business executive for a decade before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1974.

The Ohio Democrat campaigned vigorously for funding for science, education, and space exploration. In 1984, he made a failed bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. He served as a senator until 1999. STS-95 crewmember, astronaut and U.S. Senator John Glenn. Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth and returned to space in 1998 aboard a Space Shuttle flight. Credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz, Mark Sowa Despite his advancing age, Glenn was not yet finished with the space program. On Oct. 29, 1998, while still a senator, Glenn made history again when he rode the space shuttle Discovery to become the oldest space traveler. Over the course of nine days, the shuttle orbited Earth 134 times. Glenn served as payload specialist, participating in various experiments to test how his 77-year old body responded the weightless environment. The craft also carried the SPARTAN satellite to study solar wind, and hardware for an upcoming maintenance mission on the Hubble Space Telescope. In 2012, Glenn received the Presidential Medal of Freedom .

He was also on hand for the retirement of the space shuttle Discovery , though he criticized the demise of the shuttle program as delaying research. Although Glenn's second flight into space was completely different from his first, both were historic, record-setting missions. But most Americans will always remember him as the first American to orbit the Earth . —Nola Taylor Redd John H. Glenn, Jr - First American to Orbit Earth John H. Glenn, Jr, Former Astronaut, Former Senator, American Hero First American to Orbit Earth John Glenn in Friendship 7. Getty Images By Nick Greene Updated December 09, 2016. American astronaut and hero Senator John H. Glenn died on December 8, 2016 after a lengthy hospitalization. Glenn, who was one of the Mercury 7 astronauts, a team of spacefarers sent to space in the 1960s. He also flew aboard the space shuttle Discovery on STS-95 in 1998. At that time he was the oldest person to go to space. He was 95 when he died, after serving his country in the military, as an astronaut achieving several space "firsts" , and as a U.S.

Senator. He was married to his wife Annie for 73 years, working with her to help others in education and personal development. John Glenn's Life On July 18, 1921, John Herschel and Clara Sproat Glenn, of Cambridge, Ohio, had a son, whom they named after the father. Glenn attended New Concord High School and after graduation enrolled in Muskingum College, where he earned a B.S. in engineering. In early 1943, he joined the Naval Aviation Cadet Program and became a Marine pilot. He served in World War II and Korea, receiving many medals, and was a six time recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross. continue reading below our video What are the Seven Wonders of the World After Korea, John H. Glenn, Jr. attended the Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent River, Maryland, then became one of the Test Center’s top test pilots. Glenn's NASA Career When NASA began searching for pilots for its programs, Glenn applied. On April 1, 1959, the first American astronauts, the "Mercury Seven" were announced. They were Scott Carpenter , L. Gordon Cooper, Jr., John H.

Glenn, Jr., Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Alan B. Shepard, Jr., and Donald K. "Deke" Slayton. Prior to his own flight Glenn served as backup pilot for astronauts Shepard (who made the first manned Mercury flight) and Grissom (who died in the Apollo 1 fire in 1967). He launched from Cape Canaveral (renamed Kennedy) and made America's first orbital flight on February 20,1962, piloting the Mercury-Atlas 6 Friendship 7 spacecraft on the first manned orbital mission of the United States. His flight lasted 4 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds, all but seven minutes being in weightlessness. He became the first American to orbit the Earth and an instant national hero. He was promoted to the rank of Colonel by the Marine Corps on October 27, 1964 and after 23 years of distinguished service to his country, Glenn retired from the Marines on January 1, 1965. Post-NASA Life and Politics After retirement, Glenn worked as a consultant to the NASA administrator.

After that, he Glenn worked primarily as an executive with Royal Crown International, a soft drink company based in Atlanta, Georgia. He also served in the boards of several other corporations and made investments in hotel developments. In 1974, Glenn ran and won a seat in the U.S. Senate, representing the state of Ohio. In 1983, he announced his intention to gain the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984, but dropped out of the race prior to the convention. Ohioans returned him to Senate for a third term in 1986. As a member of the 105th Congress, he was the Ranking Member of both the Governmental Affairs Committee and the Subcommittee on Air and Forces in the Senate Armed Services Committee. He also served on the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Special Committee on Aging. He was considered one of the Senate's leading experts on technical and scientific matters, and is still widely respected for his work to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. On February 20, 1997, the anniversary of his historic spaceflight, Senator John H. Glenn, Jr. announced his plans to retire from the Senate.

In January, 1999 his retirement from the Senate became official. Return to Space On January 15, 1998, NASA announced a return to orbit for John Glenn. He asked NASA if he could fly again to conduct space-based research on aging, but only if he met the agency's physical and mental requirements. Assigned as a payload specialist to STS-95 Glenn was also a subject for basic research on how weightlessness affects the body of an older person. At age 77, Glenn was the oldest astronaut to fly in space, nearly twice the age of the average astronaut. He was monitored during pre-flight, in-flight, and post-flight. He was involved in two age-related experiments, as both a researcher and a guinea pig. One studied the way certain proteins are processed during weightlessness, in the hope that researchers will gain hints about what causes muscle weakening in space. The other looked into sleep patterns by comparing the circadian rhythm, or biological clock that governs alertness and sleepiness, between Glenn and the others in the crew. Glenn was also in charge of the flight's still and video photography.

Other Achievements After retiring from the Senate, John Glenn along with his wife, Annie founded the John Glenn Institute for Public Service at the Ohio State University, to encourage young people to pursue government careers. He headed it until his death. Mr. Glenn received the National Air and Space Museum Trophy for Lifetime achievement, one of the Smithsonian Institution’s highest awards. He was the recipient of numerous other honors, including the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. He also received the prestigious American Institute of Public Service's Jefferson Award in 2000, in recognition of his service as an elected official. The award was established by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in 1972 in recognition of people who have forged new paths in service to the nation. 6/12/2006 • American History On the morning of February 20, 1962, millions of Americans collectively held their breath as the world’s newest pioneer swept across the threshold of one of man’s last frontiers. Roughly a hundred miles above their heads, astronaut John Glenn sat comfortably in the weightless environment of a 9 1/2-by-6-foot space capsule he called Friendship 7.

Within these close quarters he worked through his flight plan and completed an array of technical and medical tests as he cruised through the heavens. It offered the leg room of a Volkswagen ‘Beetle’ and the aesthetics of a garbage can, but the small capsule commanded an extraordinary view of the planet Earth. Through the craft’s window, Glenn saw thick, puffy, white clouds blanketing much of southern Africa and the Indian Ocean. The Atlas Mountains of North Africa stood like proud, majestic statues on a planet that seemed as timeless as the stars that twinkled an eternity away. Dust storms blew across the deserts, and smoke from brush fires swirled into the atmosphere. ‘Oh, that view is tremendous,’ Glenn remarked over the radio to capsule communicator (Capcom) Alan Shepard, his fellow Mercury astronaut stationed back at mission control. As Friendship 7 passed over the Indian Ocean, Glenn witnessed his first sunset from space, a panorama of beautiful, brilliant colors. Before the conclusion of that historic day, he would witness a total of four sunsets–three while in earth orbit, and the fourth from the deck of his recovery ship. For Glenn, the historic voyage of Friendship 7 remains as vivid today as if it had happened yesterday.

People still ask him what it felt like to be the first American to orbit the earth. And often he thinks of his capsule’s breathtaking liftoff and those subtle, emotionally empowering sunrises and sunsets. ‘Here on earth you see a sunrise, it’s golden, it’s orange,’ Glenn recalled recently. ‘When you’re in space, and you’re coming around on a sunset or sunrise, where the light comes to you refracted through the earth’s atmosphere and back out into space, to the space craft that refraction has the same glowing color for all the colors of the spectrum . . . .’ There have been more than ten thousand sunsets since his orbital flight helped launch the United States deeper into a space race with the former Soviet Union. And although Glenn’s political career as a Democratic senator from Ohio has kept him in the public eye, he is remembered by many of his countrymen as the first American to circle the planet and as the affable spokesman for the seven Mercury astronauts. Glenn marvels at how people all over the world still recall the heady days of the Mercury program. ‘It’s been heartwarming in some respects and it’s amazing in others,’ he says.

‘I don’t go around all day, saying ‘Don’t you want to hear about my space experience?’ Quite the opposite. But if the kids come to the office here, or if I run into them on the subway and they want to stop a minute, I don’t hesitate to stop and talk. I think it’s good; I think that’s a duty we [former astronauts] have.’ By the time Glenn and Friendship 7 burst through the earth’s atmosphere, the United States was already a distant second in space technology, behind the Soviet Union. The race to begin to explore the universe had unofficially begun on October 4, 1957, when the Soviets launched Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite. ‘I think Sputnik sort of forced the hand,’ explains Gene Kranz, who served as Project Mercury’s assistant flight director and section chief for flight control operations. ‘I think we found ourselves an embarrassing second in space and related technologies. We were second best, and Americans generally don’t like that kind of a role.’ President Dwight D. Eisenhower, however, was more concerned about the country’s security than its self-esteem.

With the Soviets having the rocket power to propel a satellite into space, he wondered how long it would be before they were capable of launching a nuclear bomb toward the United States. In response to this perceived Soviet threat, Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) into being on July 29, 1958. One of the first assignments given to the new agency was to launch a man into space and return him safely to earth, and that fall, Project Mercury was created to fulfill that daunting task. On April 9, 1959, NASA formally introduced to the world the seven test pilots who would, it was hoped, carry the U.S. banner to the heavens. Selected were: Lieutenant Commanders Malcolm Scott Carpenter, Walter Marty Schirra, and Alan B. Shepard of the Navy; Air Force captains Leroy Gordon Cooper, Virgil I. ‘Gus’ Grissom, and Donald ‘Deke’ Slayton; and Lieutenant Colonel John H. Glenn of the Marine Corps. Born on July 18, 1921, Glenn was the oldest of the group, arguably the most celebrated, and an obvious candidate for Mercury from the beginning.

A veteran of World War II and the Korean War, Glenn had flown 149 combat missions and been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross five times. After completing test-pilot school in 1954, Glenn went to work testing the fastest jets America could produce. His rsum sparkled even more in 1957 after he set a transcontinental speed record for the first flight to average supersonic speed (seven hundred miles per hour) from Los Angeles to New York. From their first public appearance together, the Mercury 7 astronauts, as they came to be known, were celebrities and heroes. ‘We were at first extremely surprised when we were announced to the whole world, and how crazy everybody went over the whole thing,’ laughs Cooper. But enthusiasm for the project was one thing; making it a success was more difficult. There were countless variables and unknowns to conquer: weightlessness, a new capsule, an inconsistent booster in the Atlas rocket, and of course, the awesome specter of space. ‘To put it bluntly, we didn’t know what we were doing in many areas of the Mercury program and we were fortunate our country understood there was no achievement without risk,’ admits Kranz.

As the Mercury project evolved and moved into the next decade, NASA found a crucial supporter in President John F. Kennedy. Just weeks into his term, however, the Soviets scored another technological coup. On April 2, 1961, Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly in space, orbiting the earth once during his one hour, forty-eight minute flight, which came just three months after a U.S. Redstone rocket had carried a chimp named Ham into space and brought him safely back. On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard made America’s first, manned suborbital voyage, flying for 15 minutes and reaching an altitude of 116 miles. Compared to Gagarin’s flight around the world, Shepard’s 302-mile mission was a mere stopover between ports of call. It was, however, a major boost to America’s pride. While Gagarin flew under a cloak of secrecy, Shepard’s flight was broadcast live on television. The early success of the Mercury Program spurred President Kennedy to inspire NASA to reach for new heights.

On May 25, he grabbed the world’s attention when he told Congress that the nation’s new goal was to complete a manned trip to the moon before the end of the decade. For the first time in its space duel with the Soviet Union, the United States, which had so far amassed just 15 minutes of manned space-flight time, had set the stakes. Gene Kranz recalls with a laugh that ‘. . . we thought he was crazy,’ but the astronauts also felt energized to meet the new challenge. NASA turned its efforts up a notch that summer. In July, Gus Grissom replicated Shepard’s short suborbital flight, and by the fall, NASA was ready to attempt putting a spacecraft in orbit. As a final test in preparation for a manned trip, a chimpanzee named Enos was launched into space in late November. The craft carrying Enos completed two orbits before landing safely back on earth, after which NASA announced that on December 20 of that year, John Glenn would make the first American orbital flight. Before taking this next giant leap toward the moon, however, NASA had to ensure that an astronaut could function in a weightless environment for an extended period of time.

Some scientists feared that without proper equipment and technology, a space traveler’s eyeballs would bulge out of their sockets and change shape. This, in turn, would distort his vision and preclude his flying the craft should any of the automatic controls fail. Also, scientists feared that fluid in the inner ear might float freely into the air and that Glenn would become so nauseated and disoriented that he would be unable to perform his tasks. In addition to its concerns about Glenn’s adaptability to weightlessness, NASA worried about the inconsistent Atlas booster, the huge rocket designed to push Glenn’s ship into orbit. Two of the five unmanned test firings conducted on the 93-foot Atlas prior to Glenn’s mission had failed. The memory of one of those failures has remained vivid for Glenn. It was a night test, he remembers, ‘and it was very dramatic–searchlights and a beautiful starlit night. Not a cloud in the sky. They light this thing, and up she goes . . . . At about 27,000 feet it blew up right over our heads.

It looked like an atom bomb went off right there.’ To add to the mounting tension, poor weather and mechanical problems with the rocket forced NASA to’scrub’ Glenn’s scheduled mission nine times. Finally, on February 20, 1962, seven months after America’s last manned flight, John Glenn would don his bulky pressure suit for what would be the final time. Rising out of bed in his ‘ready room’ at NASA’s space craft center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 2:20 a.m., he checked the weather report, which indicated a fifty percent chance of rain. Glenn showered and shaved and had the customary astronaut’s breakfast of steak and eggs, before taking a pre-flight physical. If the many weeks of anticipation weighed on Glenn’s mind, his body did not reflect it. Four hours later, Glenn made the short ride to the rocket’s launch site. When he emerged from the transfer van, Launch Pad 14 resembled a movie set as giant floodlights waved streams of milky white upon the rocket and the surrounding area. The huge Atlas was a glowing silver sword in the coal black night. ‘My flight was–it was like you staged it,’ recalls Glenn.

‘It was Hollywoodesque.’ Two hours before his scheduled liftoff, Glenn squeezed into the cramped cabin of Friendship 7, perched atop the Atlas rocket. The sky was clearing, and just before 8:00 a.m. technicians began the laborious task of bolting on the entry hatch of the craft. Sealed inside the capsule, Glenn felt truly alone. The minutes ticked by slowly as he calmly and methodically worked through his preflight checklist. Finally, Glenn heard the flight team give his mission an ‘A-OK’ over the radio. With all systems functioning normally, Glenn acknowledged his preparedness with a firm ‘ready.’ As the final countdown to liftoff began, backup pilot Scott Carpenter’s voice crackled over Glenn’s radio: ‘Godspeed, John Glenn.’ At 9:47 a.m. the rocket’s three engines ignited. Friendship 7 began to vibrate as the mighty Atlas built up 350,000 pounds of thrust, the force needed to lift Glenn and his craft into orbit. For a few interminable seconds, the massive rocket held steady.

Finally, its hold-down clamps released, and the Atlas slowly, agonizingly clutched and pulled at the bright blue sky. ‘We are under way,’ Glenn reported to Mercury Control. Minutes later, Glenn was a hundred miles above the earth and traveling at more than 17,000 miles per hour. With all systems running smoothly during his initial orbit, Control advised him that he ‘had a go’ for at least seven turns around the earth. Unlike Soviet Cosmonaut Gherman Titov, who had experienced nausea and dizziness during his recent 16-orbit flight, Glenn worked and ate without difficulty. As he gazed earthward through the capsule’s window, he noted how fragile the planet appeared, shielded from the unforgiving vacuum of space by a film of atmosphere that seemed no more dense than an eggshell. Back at Mercury Control, the flight team, headed by Chris Kraft and Kranz, kept their focus on more practical considerations. After Glenn’s first orbit, Control had received a telemetry signal indicating that his capsule’s heat shield might be loose. If that signal was correct, Glenn and the spacecraft would disintegrate in the three-thousand-degree heat generated by reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.

There seemed to be only one solution to this potentially tragic problem. If Glenn refrained from jettisoning the ship’s retro-rocket package, a normal procedure just before reentry, its titanium straps might hold the shield in place. Control advised Glenn of their decision to end his flight and ordered him to plan for reentry after his third orbit. Unwilling to burden Glenn with concern over the possible heat-shield malfunction, Control offered no explanation for their decision until he was safely home. Glenn was suspicious, but all parts of Friendship 7 seemed to him to be working properly so he concerned himself only with what was within his control. Before long, the capsule splashed down safely in the Atlantic Ocean. ‘When I started back in through the atmosphere, when the straps that held the retropack on burned off, one of them popped up in front of the window,’ Glenn remembers. ‘I thought the retropack or the heat shield was breaking up. It was a real fireball. But the heat shield worked fine.’ Glenn’s flight was a public relations boon for the U.S. space program. He returned to a hero’s welcome and a wildly emotional New York City ticker-tape parade.

The United States had made a significant step forward in its competition with the Soviet Union and its quest for the moon. Few people knew, however, that the nation’s most famous pilot would never again fly in space. As Glenn recalls, ‘President Kennedy had passed word to NASA, and I didn’t know this for some years, that I was not to be used again on a flight, at least for a while. You can’t believe being the focal point of that kind of attention when we came back. I don’t know if he was concerned about political fallout, or what.’ Glenn was disappointed that he never again traveled into space, but declares,’I don’t feel cheated because I had such a tremendous flight.’ Three years after the confetti and streamers had blown away, John Glenn left NASA and, relegating space flight to a vivid memory, moved into another public arena. Politics is a high-profile world in which Glenn’s clean-cut image and amiable personality easily endeared him to his constituents and to the public in general. In 1974, he was elected to the U.S. Senate by his home state of Ohio, an office he has held through three more terms.

Despite the passage of more than a quarter century, Glenn easily recalls the innocent joy he found in those wondrous space sunsets. He has never lost the ability to draw inspiration from his experiences and to channel it into a positive outlook. ‘I think its an attitude,’ he says, of maintaining his inner youth. ‘I think kids have an expectation of what’s going to happen tomorrow. I think some people are able to maintain that whole thing, this expectation about what they’re looking forward to.’ Not surprisingly, Senator Glenn can easily find his time consumed by the business of Capitol Hill. But when a red-headed, freckle-faced teenager with blue eyes ablaze asks Glenn to describe a launch or splashdown, the senator from Ohio again becomes one of America’s first astronauts, as he relives that historic day in 1962 when time stood still and three space sunsets blazed like campfires of a thousand sparkling colors. This article was written by Bryan Ethier and originally published in October 1997 issue of American History Magazine. For more great articles, subscribe to American History magazine today!

This date in science: John Glenn first American to orbit Earth | Space | EarthSky This date in science: John Glenn first American to orbit Earth By EarthSky in Space | February 20, 2016 On February 20, 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. He made three turns around the planet before returning safely. February 20, 1962. John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth on this date. He made three turns around the planet before returning safely in his space capsule, which was called Friendship 7. He followed two Russian cosmonauts in making this early orbit of our planet: Yuri Gagarin ( April 1961) and Gherman Titov (August 1961). While Glenn was in orbit, NASA controllers received an indication that the heat shield on his craft had come loose. They instructed Glenn not to jettison the rockets underneath the heat shield during re-entry, because the rockets might be able to hold the shield in place. Fortunately, the indication turned out to be a false alarm.

Glenn returned to space at age 77 aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1998, making him the oldest person to fly in space. His mission’s primary scientific aim at that time was to study the effects of spaceflight on seniors. John Glenn climbs into the Friendship 7 spacecraft just before making his first trip into space on February 20, 1962. Photo via NASA John Glenn and Friendship 7 Here’s what John Glenn saw on February 20, 1962. Just 5 minutes and 44 seconds after launch, Glenn offered his first words about the view from his porthole: “This is Friendship 7. Can see clear back; a big cloud pattern way back across towards the Cape. Beautiful sight.” Three hours later, at the beginning of his third orbit, Glenn photographed this panoramic view of Florida from the Georgia border (right, under clouds) to just north of Cape Canaveral. His American homeland was 162 miles (260 kilometers) below. “I have the Cape in sight down there,” he noted to mission controllers. “It looks real fine from up here. I can see the whole state of Florida just laid out like on a map.

Beautiful.” Image via NASA Bottom line: John Glenn became the first American to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962. His space capsule was called Friendship 7. Friendship 7 - Home On February 20, 1962, John H. Glenn, Jr., became the first American to orbit Earth. An Atlas launch vehicle propelled a Mercury spacecraft into Earth orbit and enabled Glenn to circle Earth three times. The flight lasted a total of 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23 seconds before the Friendship 7 spacecraft splashed down in the ocean. Most major systems worked smoothly, and the flight was a great success as an engineering feat. This Mercury-Atlas (MA) 6 mission also reestablished NASA and the U.S. as a strong contender in the space race with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had launched the worlds first spacecraft, Sputnik, in October 1957 and had also sent the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into space on April 1961.

NASA responded by sending the first American, Alan Shepard, into space in May 1961, but Shepards flight was only a suborbital lob, whereas Gagarin had orbited Earth. With Glenns orbital mission, NASA was finally able to pull back even with the Soviets. The flight was the culmination of a tremendous amount of work in a relatively short time. On October 7, 1958, the newly formed NASA had announced Project Mercury, its first major undertaking. The objectives were threefold: to place a piloted spacecraft into orbital flight around Earth, observe human performance in such conditions, and recover the human and the spacecraft safely. Despite Shepards successful first flight, many questions had still remained about how Americans could survive and function in space. The success of the Friendship 7 mission enabled NASA to accelerate further its efforts with Project Mercury. During less than five years, from Mercurys start to finish, more than two million people from government and industry pooled their skills and experience to produce and manage the Nations first six piloted spaceflights. Mercury flights demonstrated that people could survive in microgravity for over a day without deterioration of normal physiological functions.

Mercury also set the stage for Projects Gemini and Apollo during the 1960s and all later U.S. human spaceflight activities. Thus, the MA-6 mission of Friendship 7 was both a capstone event and the beginning of many more achievements in human spaceflight for NASA. Stephen J. Garber An American orbits earth - Feb 20, 1962 - HISTORY.com An American orbits earth Publisher A+E Networks From Cape Canaveral, Florida, John Hershel Glenn Jr. is successfully launched into space aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft on the first orbital flight by an American astronaut. Glenn, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, was among the seven men chosen by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1959 to become America’s first astronauts. A decorated pilot, he flew nearly 150 combat missions during World War II and the Korean War. In 1957, he made the first nonstop supersonic flight across the United States, flying from Los Angeles to New York in three hours and 23 minutes. Glenn was preceded in space by two Americans, Alan B. Shepard Jr.

and Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, and two Soviets, Yuri A. Gagarin and Gherman S. Titov. In April 1961, Gagarin was the first man in space, and his spacecraft Vostok 1 made a full orbit before returning to Earth. Less than one month later, Shepard was launched into space aboard Freedom 7 on a suborbital flight. In July, Grissom made another brief suborbital flight aboard Liberty Bell 7. In August, with the Americans still having failed to make an orbital flight, the Russians sprinted further ahead in the space race when Titov spent more than 25 hours in space aboard Vostok 2, making 17 orbits. As a technological power, the United States was looking very much second-rate compared with its Cold War adversary. If the Americans wanted to dispel this notion, they needed a multi-orbital flight before another Soviet space advance arrived. It was with this responsibility in mind that John Glenn lifted off from the launch pad at Cape Canaveral at 9:47 a.m. on February 20, 1962.

Some 100,000 spectators watched on the ground nearby and millions more saw it on television. After separating from its launching rocket, the bell-shaped Friendship 7 capsule entered into an orbit around Earth at a speed of about 17,500 miles per hour. Smoothing into orbit, Glenn radioed back, “Capsule is turning around. Oh, that view is tremendous.” During Friendship 7‘s first orbit, Glenn noticed what he described as small, glowing fireflies drifting by the capsule’s tiny window. It was some time later that NASA mission control determined that the sparks were crystallized water vapor released by the capsule’s air-conditioning system. Before the end of the first orbit, a more serious problem occurred when Friendship 7‘s automatic control system began to malfunction, sending the capsule into erratic movements. At the end of the orbit, Glenn switched to manual control and regained command of the craft. Toward the end of Glenn’s third and last orbit, mission control received a mechanical signal from the spacecraft indicating that the heat shield on the base of the capsule was possibly loose. Traveling at its immense speed, the capsule would be incinerated if the shield failed to absorb and dissipate the extremely high reentry temperatures.

It was decided that the craft’s retrorockets, usually jettisoned before reentry, would be left on in order to better secure the heat shield. Less than a minute later, Friendship 7 slammed into Earth’s atmosphere. During Glenn’s fiery descent back to Earth, the straps holding the retrorockets gave way and flapped violently by his window as a shroud of ions caused by excessive friction enveloped the spacecraft, causing Glenn to lose radio contact with mission control. As mission control anxiously waited for the resumption of radio transmissions that would indicate Glenn’s survival, he watched flaming chunks of retrorocket fly by his window. After four minutes of radio silence, Glenn’s voice crackled through loudspeakers at mission control, and Friendship 7 splashed down safely in the Atlantic Ocean. He was picked up by the USS destroyer Noa, and his first words upon stepping out of the capsule and onto the deck of the Noa were, “It was hot in there.” He had spent nearly five hours in space. Glenn was hailed as a national hero, and on February 23 President John F. Kennedy visited him at Cape Canaveral.

He later addressed Congress and was given a ticker-tape parade in New York City. Out of a reluctance to risk the life of an astronaut as popular as Glenn, NASA essentially grounded the “Clean Marine” in the years after his historic flight. Frustrated with this uncharacteristic lack of activity, Glenn turned to politics and in 1964 announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate from his home state of Ohio and formally left NASA. Later that year, however, he withdrew his Senate bid after seriously injuring his inner ear in a fall. In 1970, following a stint as a Royal Crown Cola executive, he ran for the Senate again but lost the Democratic nomination to Howard Metzenbaum. Four years later, he defeated Metzenbaum, won the general election, and went on to win reelection three times. In 1984, he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president. In early 1998, NASA announced it had approved Glenn to serve as a payload specialist on the space shuttle Discovery. On October 29, 1998, nearly four decades after his famous orbital flight, the 77-year-old Glenn became the oldest human ever to travel in space.

During the nine-day mission, he served as part of a NASA study on health problems associated with aging. In 1999, he retired from his U.S. Senate seat after four consecutive terms in office, a record for the state of Ohio. Related Videos First American to Orbit Earth | World History Project First American to Orbit Earth On February 20, 1962, John H. Glenn, Jr., became the first American to orbit Earth. An Atlas launch vehicle propelled a Mercury spacecraft into Earth orbit and enabled Glenn to circle Earth three times. The flight lasted a total of 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23 seconds before the Friendship 7 spacecraft splashed down in the ocean. Most major systems worked smoothly, and the flight was a great success as an engineering feat. This Mercury-Atlas (MA) 6 mission also reestablished NASA and the U.S. as a strong contender in the space race with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had launched the world’s first spacecraft, Sputnik, in October 1957 and had also sent the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into space on April 1961.

NASA responded by sending the first American, Alan Shepard, into space in May 1961, but Shepard’s flight was only a suborbital lob, whereas Gagarin had orbited Earth. With Glenn’s orbital mission, NASA was finally able to pull back even with the Soviets. The flight was the culmination of a tremendous amount of work in a relatively short time. On October 7, 1958, the newly formed NASA had announced Project Mercury, its first major undertaking. The objectives were threefold: to place a piloted spacecraft into orbital flight around Earth, observe human performance in such conditions, and recover the human and the spacecraft safely. Despite Shepard’s successful first flight, many questions had still remained about how Americans could survive and function in space. The success of the Friendship 7 mission enabled NASA to accelerate further its efforts with Project Mercury. During less than five years, from Mercury’s start to finish, more than two million people from government and industry pooled their skills and experience to produce and manage the Nation’s first six piloted spaceflights. Mercury flights demonstrated that people could survive in microgravity for over a day without deterioration of normal physiological functions.

Mercury also set the stage for Projects Gemini and Apollo during the 1960s and all later U.S. human spaceflight activities. Thus, the MA-6 mission of Friendship 7 was both a capstone event and the beginning of many more achievements in human spaceflight for NASA. Astronaut Scott Carpenter, second American to orbit the Earth, dies at 88 | Fox News Astronaut Scott Carpenter, second American to orbit the Earth, dies at 88 Published October 10, 2013 Facebook 0 Twitter 0 livefyre Email Print Scott Carpenter, the fourth U.S. astronaut to fly in space and the second to orbit the Earth, died Thursday at a Denver hospice. Carpenter’s wife, Patty, confirmed his death to Fox News. Carpenter, 88, of Vail, Colo., recently suffered a stroke. Along with John Glenn, who flew three months before him, Carpenter was one of the last two surviving original Mercury 7 astronauts for the fledgling U.S. space program.

He was chosen in 1959 to be one of NASA’s first astronauts and flew on his one and only space mission on May 24, 1962, circling the Earth three times while conducting scientific experiments. As an astronaut and aquanaut who lived underwater for the U.S. Navy, Carpenter was the first man to explore both the depths of the ocean and the heights of space. Carpenter gave the famous send-off -- "Godspeed, John Glenn" -- when Glenn became the first American in orbit in February 1962. Three months later, Carpenter orbited the Earth three times. He lost contact with NASA during the off-target landing but was found safely floating in his life raft 288 miles away. The fallout from that missed landing was a factor that kept NASA from launching Carpenter into space again. So he went from astronaut to "aquanaut" and lived at length on the sea floor -- the only man to ever formally explore the two frontiers. The launch into space was nerve-racking for the Navy pilot on the morning of May 24, 1962.

"You're looking out at a totally black sky, seeing an altimeter reading of 90,000 feet and realize you are going straight up. And the thought crossed my mind: What am I doing?" Carpenter said 49 years later in a joint lecture with Glenn at the Smithsonian Institution. For Carpenter, the momentary fear was worth it, he said in 2011: "The view of Mother Earth and the weightlessness is an addictive combination of senses." The Associated Press contributed to this report Advertisement John Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth. True False John Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth. True False John Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth. This statement is TRUE. Get an answer John Glenn was the first American to orbit the earth. True False Original conversation Log in or sign up first. Questions asked by the same visitor Which theory is supported most by the finding that the moon is similar in composition to the outer portions of Earth? impact theory co-formation theory capture theory synchronous theory Weegy: The Giant-impact theory User: The discovery that the moon is similar in composition to the outer portions of the earth most supports the _____ theory.

impact co-formation capture synchronous Weegy: The Giant-impact theory User: What causes the seasons on Earth? Changes in the amount of energy produced in Earth's core during different seasons. The earth moving closer to and further from the Sun as it orbits. The tilt of the earth exposes different areas to direct sunlight as the earth orbits the Sun. The amount of sunlight blocked by the moon changes as the earth orbits the Sun. Weegy: The energy from the sun that reaches the Earth's surface is in the form of electromagnetic waves, which are also called photons. These electromagnetic waves are also called light User: The earth is the _____ largest planet. third fourth fifth sixth User: What do we call the days when the Sun is directly overhead the equator? solstices aphelions eclipses equinoxes Weegy: equinoxes User: _____ is the densest planet. Mercury Venus Earth Mars Weegy: The Earth is the densest planet. User: Approximately, how far is the earth from the Sun?

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Question: Who was the first American to orbit the Earth
Answer: John Glenn